Sunday, April 21, 2013

Allow me to
begin this entry to explain my absence to those who want to know where I was
for the last ten weeks. I survived a plane crash in Tasmania where I lived with
a family of platypuses. They taught me their language and how to comb the
riverbed for invertebrates and lived like a monotreme for weeks until a pair of
Slovakian tourists found me. After a brief altercation where I tried to smite
the husband with my nonexistent spur we quickly made up and they took me back
civilization so here I am. Yeah, that was a bold-faced lie but it is a more
interesting account than the truth. Anyway, let us get to the main topic of
this entry.

I make my
disdain for the New 52 no secret. It was a horribly rushed and horribly
executed reboot for several reasons but my biggest problem is that the powers
that be left the Batman and Green Lantern franchise (relatively) untouched,
which opened some gaping plot holes. That is not to say I found some parts
enjoyable: Earth 2 by James Robinson and Nikola Scott grabbed my interest
because of my appreciation all things related to the multiverse and I genuinely
like these new takes on golden age stalwarts like Jay Garrick. Wally West fans
may eviscerate me for saying this but The Flash is much more enjoyable than it
has been since Infinite Crisis ended seven years ago. However, I believe that
the reboot was a complete waste because if the sales figuresfor March 2013 are any indication, DC is back to where they started
in July 2011. Only five of the twenty top selling books are DC titles and all
them are either a) written by Geoff Johns or b) part of the Batman franchise.
If the intent of the New 52 was to generate long-term interest in their
non-Batman titles, then it was a spectacular failure complete with
awe-inspiring fireball. Not only did the New 52 fail to attract a new audience,
it alienated many longtime readers of their books.

“Let's
call a duck a duck. DC has pi$$ed off a whole lot of readers over the years,
and their endless reboots and retcons have chased away longtime readers...
myself included. My pull has gone from over 30 books a month (almost 100% DC)
up until post-Flashpoint, and I am now reading quite a few Marvel books again
after a loooooooong absence. For me, that spells things out plainly.

So, let's undo all the "fixes" they have attempted over the years.
Put someone with some idea of how fans' brains operate in charge and have them
helm the project. Make it a grand event. I would like to suggest creating a
single title for just that purpose. If DC chooses to let fans in on the
significance of the book or not, leave it up to them. They could just tease
with something along the lines of "Read this series! It will have long
lasting and grand implications in the end." You get where I'm going.

Also, so as not to cheese off readers post 1985, make it a
universe/time-spanning epic. Pick out the characters that are proven
winners/have a significant fan base. Get Booster Gold and Rip Hunter to gather
up Batwoman, Blue Beetle (Jaime), Barry Allen, Bart Allen from pre-Flashpoint,
Donna Troy, and whomever else is worth carrying over to the pre-COIE Universe,
and have them journey to put things right. This way the readers can have their
cake and eat it, too. We've got the multiverse back, we can bring in newer, fan
loved characters, and spin the rest off on another Earth in the Multiverse.

I vote "Yes!"”

My answer an
empathic, “NO!” No, no, no, NO! Bringing the old Pre-Crisis continuity is an
incredibly terrible idea for several reasons, the biggest on being that
twenty-seven year passed since that Crisis ended. The world has seen five
American presidents during that time (Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., and
Obama) and so much has changed culturally since then. I doubt that DC could or
even wants to convince Roy Thomas to pick up where he left off on All-Star
Squadron and Infinite Inc. or bring Gerry Conway back on Fury of
Firestorm. Then there is the fact that DC
attracted a substantial fanbase during the post-Crisis era and that would be a
great betrayal to them and the removal of Donna Troy and the aforementioned
Wally West is still a sore spot for them. No, I do not believe that returning
to the pre-Crisis multiverse is a wise idea, neither is bringing back the
post-Crisis universe, and hell, I do not event want the pre-Flashpoint universe
to return. I simply want a blank slate and bring every character back to basics
without any of the continuity baggage DC wants to bring with every reboot.

Imagine the DC
universe as an old house with many good memories but the air tastes a little
stale after fifty years, the stairs creak whenever you walk on them, and the
plumbing and wiring need a little work. Crisis on Infinite Earths comes around and tears down the walls and removes
the furniture. The “builders” remove a few support columns (Wonder Woman’s
membership in the Justice League, the existence of Superboy as Superman when he
was a boy) and leave the plumbing and wiring untouched. They bring in some new
furniture and repaint the walls but problems begin to arise. The house is
structurally unsound, the plumbing is starting to leak, and the electricity
periodically shorts out. Zero Hour
and Infinite Crisis attempt
address these problems by plugging the leaks with duct tape and hastily solder
the wiring. The builders bring back some of the old furniture out of a
misplaced sense of nostalgia and assume everything will be fine. Years later,
the pipes begin to break and a week does not go by without a fuse getting
blown. The builder’s answer is to knock down all but two of the other supports
(Batman and Green Lantern) and replace the superficial damage, which leaves us
with a wreck of house that is one summer breeze from total collapse. Sometimes
the sensible thing to do is to demolish the house and rebuild from the
still-intact foundation.

We fans are an
anal-retentive bunch that giggle when a writer references an obscure story and
weaves into their narrative. We love the smallest mote of continuity because it
is somewhat similar to be in on a joke that only a small circle of people know.
Unfortunately, the downside to that is that it creates baggage that weighs down
a fictional universe and its characters. I recall that Crisis on Infinite
Earths writer, Marv Wolfman, intended for
the event to end with a blank slate for ALL the characters from an issue of
Wizard magazine back in 2005-6. Greg Weisman who helmed Gargoyles and Young Justice explained why this would not
work:

“I
was working on staff at DC Comics during the publication of the original Crisis
on Infinite Earths. In fact, during my very first editorial meeting, I raised
the question as to why we weren't starting ALL our books over (with the
numerical exceptions of Detective and Action Comics) with issue #1. I remember
very clearly a collective groan rising up from the conference room table. (They
had dealt with this question for months before my arrival.) On the one hand,
they wanted Crisis to be a real sea-change, a true reboot (before we knew that
term). On the other hand, if you truly reboot Batman, then Robin doesn't exist
yet. No Robin, no other sidekicks either. So no Teen Titans. And at the time,
the New Teen Titans was the company's best selling book. So the end result was
that some things got rebooted and some did not.This was complicated by the fact that certain creators came
late to the party, and certain characters got reboots too long AFTER Crisis.”

There was a financial
dimension to it as noted by the Teen Titan mention but I also believe that a
fair amount of writers and editors simply did not want to drop the storylines
in their respective titles and so they brought their baggage into the allegedly
simplified DC Universe. Hence some of the seminal stories of the Silver Age
like “Flash of Two Worlds” still “happened” but not in the way they were
written. Similarly, Wonder Woman debuted well after the Justice League in the
new continuity so Black Canary took her place as founding member so you those
of Justice League of America issues where Wonder Woman demonstrated her
superhuman strength or used her lasso? Surprise! That was Black Canary. Then we
get to the problem of Donna Troy
(AKA Wonder Girl), which evolved into a constant headache for the company
because of inconsistent writing and that was only the tip of the iceberg that
sank DC’s Titanic.

My feelings
mirror Mr. Weisman’s when he says, “So, personally, my feeling on reboots in
general is that you either do them or you don't. You've got to be thorough and
ruthless about it, or don't bother, because otherwise - long term - you're
creating more problems than you're solving.” We fans have grown so attached to our
continuity baggage that it becomes heresy to even suggest letting it go.
Reboots are an “all or nothing” enterprise and we occasionally need to discard
continuity to create a clear narrative. Young Justice was not an excellent program because of the
background history detailed in the series’ bible, it was an excellent program
because of Mr. Weisman and his staff’s use of motifs and characterization to
create an engaging story. DC’s single-minded focus on continuity and attracting
new readers proved too shortsighted plus the overbearing editorial direction
has only made the New 52 more of an unsightly mess.

We as fans need
to overcome this “separation anxiety” that keeps us chained to continuity and
limits our thinking. While I do not care for the emotional and creative baggage
that comes with continuity, I believe it is far better to distill it into
themes that talented writers can approach from a different perspective. Most
people could say that the Silver/Bronze Age Superman was stagnant by the early
1980s but Alan Moore proved that he still had some gas in the tank with “For
The Man That Has Everything” and gave him a stunning sendoff with “What
Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” Grant Morrison managed to distill the Man of
Steel to his core mythology in All-Star Superman and did not need to adhere to continuity to make it one of my absolute
favorite Superman stories all time and I only need to look at the oft-referenced page
featuring the suicidal girl as an example.

Superman is
supposed represent an ideal. He does not look down on humanity but aspires to
lift us up and represent the best in us. He genuinely cares for everyone and
image of him comforting the girl shows us that be believes that no individual
life is insignificant. Yes, as banal as it sounds, Superman is supposed to
represent idealism and bringing back the pre-Crisis continuity will add nothing
to it and alienate even more readers. DC ultimately needs to demolish the shaky
house that is the New 52 and rebuild from the foundation of themes that made
its characters great in the first place, hire the talent necessary, and
actually let them do their job. But do they have the courage and the will to make such an endeavor work? Recent events leave me with little optimism.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Apparently
long-time Marvel Comics writer and 20th Century Fox superhero “guru,” Mark
Millar says that a Justice League film is a good way to
lose $200 million. Can someone in the audience tell me what is wrong
with this picture? It is not that Mr. Millar is wrong. A Justice League film
has the potential to be a nine-figure atom bomb like 2011’s Green Lantern but
his reasoning for why such an endeavor would fail bothers me.

“I actually
think the big problem for them is the characters are just too out of date. The
characters were created 75 years ago, even the newest major character was
created 68 years ago, so they’re in a really weird time...The actual logistics
of each member of the Justice League is disastrous, and you put them all
together and I think you get an excellent way of losing $200 million.”

Mr. Millar has
always entertained the notion that Superman and his cohorts were too “outdated
and irrelevant” to the point where it borders on obsession. When I peel away
his reasoning, that most of the Justice League members should be collecting old
age pensions, it falls apart when I take the longevity of Marvel’s stable into
account. Captain America is pushing seventy-five himself, the Hulk and Thor are
now fifty, and Iron Man will be turning fifty this year. I fail to see how DC’s
characters are irrelevant because of their age when Marvel’s characters are not
exactly a breath of fresh air themselves. Never mind the fact that the current
incarnations of the Flash and Green Lantern predate Marvel by a few years (1956
and 1959, respectively.) That would be akin to a seventy-five year-old telling
me he is not a senior citizen because his neighbor is ninety-five.

Logistics, on
the other hand, is where Mr. Millar may bring up a valid argument. Let us hear
what he has to say:

“Now
the stuff I grew up with… I adored the DC stuff growing up but really, how do
you do a movie about Green Lantern,” asks Millar, “his power is that he
manifests green plasma from his imagination and uses them as weapons against
someone? Even that in itself if you just imagine then watching a fight scene
with a guy who’s like a hundred feet away making plasma manifestations fight
someone – it’s not exactly raucous, getting up close and personal.”

This statement
demonstrates how Mr. Millar knows very little of why the Green Lantern film was
a failure. There was and is nothing wrong with the concept behind it: a dying
member of an extraterrestrial police force gives test pilot the most powerful
weapon. It was the horrible writing abysmal execution that torpedoed it with
its rushed plot that was thin on characterization, packed with needless
exposition, and overuse of computer-generated imagery to name a few.
Furthermore, I fail to see how Green Lantern’s ability to generate plasma
constructs through his ring would make fight scenes any less exciting because
it is not “exactly raucous” or “up close and personal.” Especially when many of
the Marvel films to not heavily depend on close-quarters combat.

Take Matthew
Vaughn’s (who also directed the film adaptation of Millar’s Kick-Ass) X-Men:
First Class where neither Charles Xavier nor Magneto possessed powers that
required them to get up close and personal with Sebastian Shaw and his
associates. Likewise for Banshee, Havok, and Emma Frost. Similarly, neither
Iron Man nor Thor needed to get into a physical confrontation because of the
nature of their abilities in the Avengers. Iron Man could dispatch enemy
combatants from a hundred feet or more with his armor’s repulsor rays and Thor
could just as easily summon lightning and hurricane-force winds with Mjolnir
and that did not make the film any less enjoyable. Conversely, Green Lantern
can produce swords, axes, and other close combat weapons with his ring to
physically engage with his adversaries (like Sinestro) similar to how Thor uses
Mjolnir as a blunt weapon against the frost giants. Also, given Hal Jordan’s
brashness, it would make more sense for him to engage in close-quarters combat
because of his ego.

Millar, quite
frankly, is grievously mistaken in his assumptions over Green Lantern’s
failings. The Green Lantern franchise has the potential to become DC/Warner
Brothers’ answers to Lucasarts (and now Disney’s) Star Wars. However, the
management was too eager to jump on the superhero bandwagon 2008’s Iron Man
started and they paid for it in disappointing box office returns. Perhaps DC
Comics and Warner Brothers should watch the original, unedited Star Wars
trilogy and read Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with
a Thousand Faces. Methinks they would learn more from those sources
than from Mr. Millar’s ill advice.

Moving on…

“The
Flash has door handles on the side of his mask and if he doesn’t wear that
mask, I’ll be pissed off, you know what I mean? They’re in a weird, weird
situation – if you’ve got a guy who moves at the speed of light up against the
Weather Wizard and Captain Cold or whatever, then your movie’s over in two
seconds.”

I see it as bad
omen when Mr. Millar begins with a criticism of the Flash’s costume. Partly
because the wingtips on his “ears” not only invoke the mythological imagery of
Hermes/Mercury, but also speaks to the characters streamlined design that hails
from the jet age. Perhaps, Mr. Millar is correct in that the Flash’s speed
makes it difficult to give the character dramatic tension when he could
theoretically solve any problem in a matter of nanoseconds but it is not
impossible. A potential film could easily borrow from Barry Allen’s post-New 52
origin and adapt the “Move Forward”
storyline with Mob Rule. While some Rogues like the aforementioned Weather
Wizard and Captain Cold may not be conductive for a film format due to the
nature of the characters but Gorilla Grodd could still give the Flash trouble
with his telepathic powers and raw savagery. Talking gorillas from a hidden
city may stretch the suspension of disbelief, but would it be more of a stretch
than let us say, a city of technologically advanced space Vikings in a distant
galaxy?

Then we have
Mirror Master, who can conceivably keep the Flash on his toes with the light
motif, or the potential for a Reverse-Flash down the line. Plus, with the
Flash’s history of traveling through time or to parallel worlds, there is a
wellspring of potential.

I am beginning
to wonder if Mr. Millar simply lacks imagination.

“You
can get away with stuff in comics that in live action’s just a bit sucky – the
best one is definitely Aquaman. Aquaman can’t even talk under water. If you
think about it in comics it’s fine, you just have a speech balloon, but how do
you have Atlantis and people talking under water? Are they gonna talking
telepathically? Is it going to be body forms?”

Okay, this is
beginning to get more ridiculous. Out of all the reasons not to produce an
Aquaman film, Mr. Millar is worried about how the people of Atlantis are going
to speak underwater? Given the possibly Shakespearean drama from a plot where
Aquaman is locked in a struggle for the Atlantean throne with his brother, Orm
(AKA Ocean Master), I would believe that any such concerns regarding how they
will speak underwater is secondary. I could cite examples of how Wonder Woman,
and even Firestorm, could have the potential to be great concepts but the
problem here is that I believe Mr. Millar, in his capacity as a creative
consultant for the pending Fantastic Four film reboot, is simply trash talking
the competition. I also detect some lingering acrimony from the controversy
over censorship of his run on The Authority might factor into his criticisms as
well. Personally, I do not know why a website such as SciFi Now would consider
Mr. Millar a “superhero guru” when is a decent, if not good, writer at best.
Why not ask Kevin Feige, how has overseen the Marvel Cinematic universe? How
about more acclaimed writers like Millar’s former partner, Grant
Morrison, or academics like Ben Saunders?
Millar’s criticisms strike me as shallow, unimaginative, and I fail to see why
I should take them seriously.

ADDENDUM:

However, does he
have a point? I suppose. As a friend of mine said in response
to the original draft of my commentary, one of the major obstacles to a Justice
League movie is that it would appear to be a desperate attempt to cash in on
the popularity of the Avengers and the ill-conceived Green Lantern film does
not do much to allay those fears. But Mr. Millar is especially off base in his
claims that Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and so forth are irrelevant
due to their age and the nature of their abilities. I will also put my friends
assertions that Iron Man and Thor’s abilities are “more accessible” into
dispute. Jane Foster herself paraphrased Arthur C. Clarke in Thor when she
said, “Magic is science we do not understand yet.” So if Mjolnir and the
Bifrost are products of technology that is far more advanced than anything
found on Earth, then why Green Lantern’s ring, a piece of alien technology, is
less believable than anything found in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? The same
applies to lightsabers and hyperdrive from Star Wars, which movie going
audiences had little difficulty in suspending their disbelief for, but I
digress. Maybe it is simply the wrong time for DC and Warner Brothers to try to
shoot for the Moon in a cardboard box when Marvel already won that race, which
Mr. Millar is attempting to convey but lacks the eloquence to do so.

Yet Marvel may
have shot itself in the foot with the Avengers because how can they top what many believe was nirvana for comic book
geekdom? Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and perhaps the Hulk are all viable
franchises but what else does Marvel have to use? 20th Century Fox
owns the film rights to the X-Men and
Fantastic Four franchises and
Columbia holds the rights to Spider-Man to which both companies will keep producing films for to hold said
rights. That leaves Marvel with Daredevil? Luke Cage? Black Panther? Captain
(formerly Ms.) Marvel? I seriously doubt that any of those characters, aside from
Daredevil, are capable of carrying a film by themselves. I enjoy Edgar Wright’s
work but I do not have any reason to believe that he can rescue ­Ant-Man from
obscurity than he could with Scott Pilgrim. Nor do I believe that Guardians
of the Galaxy will be a roaring success
because those characters are on an even lower tier than Daredevil and Ant-Man.
When I give it more thought, perhaps it is a better idea for DC to shelve their
plans for further Green Lantern
or Flash films and carefully
watch what their competition is doing. After all, despite their terrible luck
with non-Batman or Superman films, they have done a respectable job with their
properties on television with Arrow
as their latest example. Perhaps they can learn a few lessons if Marvel’s cinematic
universe implodes under the weight of its own success.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Superheroes and
alternate history are two subgenres of science fiction that have always
appeared to compliment one another but very few writers ever dared to combine
and exploit to its fullest. One reason for this is continuity, the holy grail
of all comic book geeks. Ever since the debut of Superman in 1938 and the
Fantastic Four in 1961, the Big Two of the comic book industry more or less on
a floating timeline that prevents their characters from aging (though
continuity is far murkier for DC after two major reboots and countless smaller
retcons.) Superman could be BFFs with Joseph Kennedy in 1963 then be shaking
hands with Ronald Reagan twenty years later without aging a single day. Another
reason is because both companies, especially Marvel, pride themselves on
verisimilitude by making their universe superficially similar to ours so
neither company has fully addressed the social and geopolitical implications of
the effective demigods in their midst until recent years with Marvel’s Civil
War and DC’s 52.

However, one can
consider Marvel’s “What If?” titles and DC’s Elseworlds line alternate history
to some extent. These titles largely centered on the individual histories of
their characters like “What if Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four?” or “What
if Sgt. Nick Fury Fought World War II in Space?”
rather than historical events from our world. Some scenarios such as “What if
Captain America Were Revived Today?” from What If? (vol. 1) #44 possesses some trappings of alternate history. For
example, Namor the Sub-Mariner took a different route when the Avengers pursued
him in Avengers (vol. 1)#4 so he never discovered the group
of Inuit who worshipped a frozen Steve Rogers and thus never hurled Captain
America into the ocean for the Avengers to find. The Avengers eventually
disbanded without Captain America, but more disturbingly, a janitor working at
a government facility awakened the mentally unstable 1950s Captain America and
Bucky from suspended animation and convinced them that the United States was in
danger from subversive elements. As such, the impostor Captain America and
Bucky became involved with a political movement that transformed the United
States into a police state until a crew of American sailors found the true Cap
in the Arctic.

Marvel, aside
from a dalliance with a robot
Stalin, waited almost twenty years to dip their toe into the alternate
history ocean with Neil Gaiman’s 1602. While not technically a What If? issue, the mini-series has a point of divergence (a
Captain America from a potential future goes back in time to the failed Roanoke
colony and aids in their survival) that causes various Marvel characters to
appear nearly four hundred years before they should have. Instead of being the
director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury is Elizabeth I’s chief intelligence officer
whose apprentice is Peter Parquagh, an ersatz version of a nameless friendly
neighborhood webslinger. However, one of the more intriguing elements of Marvel
1602 is Gaiman weaved themes from X-Men into late Elizabethan history, particularly James
I’s persecution of the “witchbreed” or mutants and how Magneto is ostensibly a
grand inquisitor for the Spanish Inquisition but hides his illicit activities
behind his position.

This fascination
with alternate history continued with the fourth volume of What If? in late 2005. Unlike most issues of the title, which
were largely self-contained worlds, this volume of the series took place within
in a single timeline
where Captain America’s genesis occurs in the American Civil War as opposed to
World War II and the Fantastic Four were Russian cosmonauts. Being more of an
aficionado of American history, I prefer the Captain America one and appreciate
how Cap because more of a physical manifestation of the American spirit during
one the nation’s most troubled periods rather than symbol. Because of this
Cap’s presence shortens the Civil War, prevents Abraham Lincoln’s
assassination, and his origins in Native American mysticism sparked a cultural
craze that prevented the Indian Wars of the 1870s. Out of the six What If? (Vol. 4) one-shots,
only Captain America and Fantastic
Four address the broader strokes of
alternate history whereas the other four are more character-focused.
Unfortunately, Marvel did not revisit this timeline as they did Marvel
1602, but they are well worth the effort of
searching through the odd long box for.

Meanwhile, DC,
like their marvelous competition, has only dabbled in the realm of alternate
history with its Elseworlds line but
there are a few notable examples such as Batman: Holy Terrorwritten by Alan Brennert and illustrated by
Norm Breyfogle. The point of divergence for this story is that Oliver Cromwell
lived ten years longer and the United States became a totalitarian, theocratic
state. While I have never read the issue on account that it has been out of
print for over twenty years, a cursory glance of the synopsis on Wikipedia was
enough to pique my interest and should do the same for other alternate history enthusiasts.
DC’s Tangent imprint,
introduced in 1997, operates under a similar premise where there are not only
vastly different versions of Superman, the Flash, the Atom, and even obscure
characters like the Sea Devils but the presence of superpowered beings
radically altered history from what we know. The central premise behind the
imprint is that an alternate version of the Atom intervened in the Cuban
Missile Crisis, which resulted in the destruction of Florida and Cuba. As such,
Atlanta became an underwater city populated by merpeople, their technology
advanced further than the mainstream DC Universe, and the hippie movement was
in its infancy when the nineties rolled around.

Dan Jurgens, the
man who killed Superman and the brain behind Tangent, justified this divergence
when he told Comic
Book Resources:

“While
the DCU Earth is essentially the same as our own, no more advanced in terms of
technology or communications despite the existence of those qualities within
the super-powered community, Earth Tangent is greatly influenced by all of
that. Earth Tangent's economic, geographic and political landscapes are defined
by the superhero community, whereas in the DCU those aspects exist unaffected
by the superhero community.”

Jurgens brings
up an excellent point about a medium that birthed the trope, “Reed
Richards is Useless.” Take the Flash’s rogues gallery for example, Captain
Cold and his cohorts possess technology that can generate temperatures near
absolute zero, alter weather patterns, and even transmute the 118 elements. Why
did the scientists and business leaders not reverse engineer the technology
after the Central City Police Department confiscated it? The Tangent imprint
gives something of a look at such a world and is perhaps a blueprint for how
ambitious writers should combine the two genres.

Some could argue
that Superman: Red
Son is an alternate history and I
suppose it is to some extent. The premise is simple enough: baby Kal-L lands in
Ukraine in 1938 instead of Kansas. However, my impression of the mini-series is
that if it is alternate history, it is about squishy as bag full of
marshmallows (or a Type X on Sliding
Scale of Alternate History Plausibility.) Its writer, Mark Millar, makes
reference to even greater civil unrest in the late 1960s under surviving JFK, a
war against communists in the South Pacific in 1983, and a second American
Civil War in 1986 without too much elaboration. Granted, there are constraints
to the medium but it is clear that the focus is more on Superman as a seemingly
benevolent leader of the Soviet Union and his rivalry with Lex Luthor than on
the butterflies that a Soviet Man of Steel would create. That is not to say Red
Son is not worth reading, it is more
fantasy than alternate history.

Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is the mirror image
of Red Son in terms of realism
and setting. In fact, the world of Watchmen could be a reflection ours until 1938 where the first
appearance of Superman in Action Comics #1 inspired a wave of costumed vigilantes, and again in
1959 with the creation of Dr. Manhattan. Alternate history is one portion of
Watchmen’s complexity that Moore executes extremely well. Dr. Manhattan
essentially gave the United States the strategic advantage in the Cold War and
practically won the Vietnam War single-handedly but that also becomes a
disadvantage because he is also the lone reason why the Soviet Union stays in
check. Hence, Moore makes the consequences of his departure realistic as
evidenced by the Soviet invasion of Pakistan and bringing Earth closer to the
brink of Nuclear War. However, there are also several other economic and
cultural consequences as well. The good doctor’s ability to synthesize lithium
allows for the mass production of electric cars, hence reducing the United
States’ dependence of foreign petroleum, and the appearance “real” superheroes
essentially led to the death of the medium in the late forties so pirate comics
like “The Tales of the Black Freighter.” (Though I wonder how Indian fast food
became so popular with the American public instead of McDonalds.) Watchmen is practically required reading for all comic book
fans, but to read it again from the prism of an alternate historian
demonstrates how well the two genres blend.

One of the
things I admire about alternate history is that it posed a question Marvel
asked when they released a new title in February 1977, “what if?” Personally, I
am not as interested in the typical “What if the Axis won World War II?” or
“What if the Confederacy won the American Civil War?” as I am interested in
smaller events like “What
if a more moderate candidate sought the democratic nomination in 1972” or “What
if Lucille Ball decided not to sell Desilu Studios to Gulf+Western?”
because even the smallest pebble can create many ripples. Marvel 1602,
Tangent Comics, and Watchmen demonstrate that alternate history can blend with
the fantastic as peanut butter tends to do with chocolate, and they are only
the tip of the glacier. In a universe populated by gods, aliens, and immortal
cavemen who could alter the flow of history well before the 20th
century, the myriad of scenarios to use as story fodder is practically endless.
Is there a writer ambitious enough to push this hybrid genre to its creative
limits?

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Today saw the
last issue of Legion Lost, another New 52 launch title, hit comic book shops
and the cancellation leaves me with conflicted feelings towards the title. On
one hand, it was nice to have a second Legion of Super-Heroes title for the
first time in twelve years, but the title was scarcely above average at best
and mediocre most months. Not that there was anything with the concept: a team
of legionnaires chase an anti-human terrorist who wants to change the past by
mutating the humans of our era, but everything goes to hell when their arrival
ends with two legionnaires dead and their advance technology inert. A concept
that shares similarities with James Cameron’s the Terminator and the deaths of the two legionnaires ramped up the
stakes. So where did the title go wrong?

I am afraid that
the title was doomed from the beginning and I am, quite frankly, surprised that
Legion Lost was not a victim of the
first and second New 52 cullings.
The Legion of Super-Heroes, similar the New Teen Titans, was a niche title
since the seventies after the apex of the team’s popular Adventure
Comics run in the sixties. Legion fans have
an eye for minutia for continuity and obscure characters who made a single
appearance like Legion rejects and the like. If you never had picked up a
Legion title before the New 52, chances are that you would find the first issue
confusing and chaotic. If you had no idea of who Dawnstar, Wildfire, Timber
Wolf, or especially Chameleon Girl and Gates were you had no reason to even
care that a time travel accident left them stranded in the 21st
century. Writer Fabian Nicieza did not give much of an introduction to these
characters nor did he establish their personalities to make an uninitiated
audience care.

Things did get
better over the next five issues when things calmed down enough to show
tensions between the time-lost legionnaires. Especially team leader Tyroc who
had to deal with the always hotheaded and belligerent Wildfire or Timber Wolf
who (appropriates) broke off from the crew to hunt for their target. Likewise
with Dawnstar who seemed emotionally distant from her teammates, which led to a
rift between her and longtime love interest, Wildfire that I always found
forced because Geoff Johns pulled on this plot thread in Legion of Three
Worlds. Combine that with the fact that
they were persona non grata in the 21st century, survival became a
concern, especially when unidentified metahumans tended to attract unwanted
attention from the US government and the secretive team of metahuman operatives
Stormwatch.However, two events sent the title
sliding into mediocrity: the departure of Fabian Nicieza and “the Culling”
crossover with the Teen Titans.
Not that to knock on Tom DeFalco’s skills as a writer but “the Culling” was a
needless diversion from the main storyline and some of the names he used (like
“Psy-Kill” and the “Meta-American”) sounded like a villain from an early 90s
Image comic penned by Rob Liefeld. So the conclusion to the first arc ended on
a whimper rather than with any meaningful resolution, so the title dithered on
to its final issue.

Not that there
were not any interesting plot developments. I found the Echo division of the
Science Police (the 31st century version of the FBI, or the Mounties
if you are Canadian like me), who monitored the timeline and sent denizens of
the future to past eras as part of a Witness Relocation Program intriguing.
Even the revelation that Chameleon Girl was an SP spy was a clever touch
considering that the character infiltrated the Legion back in the eighties
during Levitz’s acclaimed run on the title. Even, her superior, Captain
Nathaniel Adym (any
relation?) had a sinister presence as her superior who ordered her to make
sure the stranded legionnaires fulfilled their destiny. And then a space
barbarian and his talking dragon show up to threaten Earth for no reason other
than he just can.

Seriously, an
evil, celestial version of He-Man and Battlecat are the final villains the
stranded legionnaires face in their own title. To quote a certain contributor
to That Guy With the Glasses,
“I could not make this shit up if I tried.”

To sum up the
plot that the last issues in as few words at possible: the ersatz He-Man sets
up a force field and builds a machine. Captain Atom—I mean, Adym decides to
blow up ersatz He-Man with a singularity bomb that will destroy half of North
America to “save quintillions.” The Ravagers, Superboy, and even Harvest from
“the Culling” join the fray. Then Gates teleports ersatz He-Man, his space
dragon, and the bomb into the nearest black hole to eliminate the threat; all
the legionnaires are alive at the end and there was much rejoicing!

Except when
telepathic goldfish, Tellus, reveals that ersatz He-Man’s intended “to
communicate” to an unrevealed presence with his machine and not to destroy the
Earth as they first thought. So the stranded legionnaires will be waiting for
whoever was at the end of ersatz He-Man’s call and the final issue ends with,
“Never the end!”

I know I am
glossing over more that a few details, but does it really matter at this point?
I cannot help but feel that these sixteen issues were a waste of my time
because despite the compelling story elements Nicieza and DeFalco offered me as
a reader, the bad far outweighed the good and DC could not bother to give us
long-suffering readers any resolution other than the promise that these
Legionnaires may make an appearance in a future issue of Teen Titans or The Ravagers? I would rather have had DeFalco take them back to the 31st
century where they would receive the attention they deserve than have them sit
around and wait for Harvest or whoever to show up. In the end it feels like a
waste. A waste of my money, a waste of my time, and a waste of my patience with
DC after the New 52 nearly burned
up the last of my good will.

But at least The
Flash has been a compelling read and a
visual treat, but please do not tell any Wally West fans that I said that.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Every pop
culture aficionado should now about the 1984 hit comedy, Ghostbusters. A movie that made almost $300 million at the box
office and spawned a successful animated series and line of action figures and,
unfortunately, some
regrettably horrible games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Fans of
the franchise also know that Columbia Pictures was also not the first company
to use the name and Filmation produced a live-action television series by the
same name in 1975, which prompted Columbia to buy the rights to the name.
Meanwhile, Filmation produced an animated Ghostbusters series of their own in 1986 while DiC Animation
named the animated spin-off, The Real Ghostbusters as a “take that” to
Filmation. The point of my brief history being that it is interesting how the
names of multi-million franchises like Ghostbusters inadvertently take their namesakes from obscure
series from other mediums.

Fast-forward
seven years to 1991 when Street Fighter II
swallowed the allowances of teenage boys’ allowance whole in the arcade or
bought the fight to the living room with its home release on the Super
Nintendo. What most fans of the seminal fighting game do not even know is that
the name Street Fighter comes
from an extremely obscure comic book from 1986, one year the release of the
original arcade Street Fighter.
By obscure, I mean that only one mini-series published by Ocean Comics and a
one-shot, The Original Street Fighter, published by Alpha Comics in 1995 exist and are hard to come by as
independent publications. The only reason I know this comic existed is because
I saw a cover image of the second issue in the Overstreet Price Guide almost fifteen years ago.

I came across
the first two issues at my local comic shop a few months ago, and fortunately,
the owner let me have them for free. Never one to refuse a good deal, I brought
the issues home to read and see what the deal with it was and, “Hoo Nelly,” it
blew my expectations out of the water, and not exactly in a peasant way either.
So to quote Linkara, “Let’s dig into Street Fighter #1 and 2.”

And if any
aspiring musician who reads this, feel free to write me a theme song if you do
not mind getting paid in cashews and gum wrappers.

So we have the
cover of Street Fighter #1, and the main
thing that strikes me is the similarity of the comic’s logo to its video game
namesake’s and that it where the similarities end, my platy-pals. Instead of
Ryu, Ken, or even Dan Hibiki, we have a random stranger in a black body suit
with turquoise face paint and holsters slung around his upper leg and shoulder
crashing though a skylight onto a trio of stereotypical gangsters. In terms of
composition, it is a striking cover where “Street Fighter” takes up a good half
of the page so we know who the main character is but I have no idea why he has
one hand open while the other is balled into a fist. The perspective of the
cover is also a bit wonky as the artist drew it with two perspectives: a
frontal close-up of Street Fighter (who I will dub “SF” to avoid confusion) and
an overhead perspective of the gangsters and crates below. The latter’s
placement and posture is also problematic. It looks like “Shades” is about to
swing his chain into the head of “Knives,” who will in turn accidentally thrust
his blade into the should of “Fedora,” who looks like he is in excruciating
pain because he contorted his spine into an unnatural position. At least, that
is what I believe will happen moments after SF lands on the floor. Aside from
that and the lack of detail in the background, unless these criminals painted
the walls of their warehouse yellow, it is not a bad cover but not really a
good one either. It aroused my curiosity enough to open it, but how does it
fare under scrutiny?

If I could
describe my feelings of the story into six words, they would be, “pretty good,
but a little generic.” From what I have read about the writer, Ron Fortier’s,
bibliography and noticed that he has written a number of pulp novels and
Fortier’s forward in Street Fighter #1
even admits that he based the character on “Batman to the Lone Ranger, Sherlock
Holmes to the Shadow, Bruce Lee to Buck Rogers,” and it shows. SF borrows
heavily from Batman and the Punisher in his origin as second issue explains the
murder of his family at the hands of the mob. There are also elements of Doc
Savage as two police officers train the now-amnesiac Adam Ranger to become a
weapon against the criminals of Metro City along with loyal group of
specialists. Like I said, generic, but that does not necessarily mean SF is a
bad character. Bill Finger took inspiration from several sources like The
Mark of Zorro and The Bat
Whispers for Batman and the Man
Who Laughs For the Joker after all. If you
are not a fan of the old pulps like me, SF will seem unremarkable but has
enough draw if you are such a fan.

The prose in the
caption may appear overwrought it is also very atmospheric. As cliché as “In
the heart of darkness the spark of hope burns” would sound today in 2013 it
calls back to the era of pulps and radios. However, my main gripe with the plot
of the first issue is that it reads in a very pedestrian manner because the
three act structure that involves SF rescuing an anonymous woman, then one of
his police allies betrayed by a corrupt officer, and rescue the daughter of
city councilor held hostage by a mob boss who swears revenge. Again, somewhat
uninspired but necessary to establish the character and the pace of the story
does pick up in the second issue with a raid on a police precinct and the
promise of a roaring
rampage of revenge next issue, which I do not have.

Street
Fighter’s biggest shortcoming is its art.
Gary Kato’s style reminds me a little of Steve Ditko in terms of expressions
and the panels move fluidly during the action scenes where SF is using his
martial arts prowess against his adversaries. However, his style is very simplistic
to the point where it appears that he penciled the book as if it were the
nineteen-forties. Ocean Comics published this comic in 1986 when superstar
artists like John Byrne, George Perez, and a slightly saner Frank Miller were
at the top of their game. Harsh for twenty-five year old comic book, I know,
but with comics being a visual medium, artwork that looks like something a
middle-schooler would hand in takes away from what is an ultimately serviceable
story.

So do I
recommend Street Fighter the comic book?
Personally, I would have only spent money on it to satisfy my curiosity though I suppose
it is satisfactory if you are a vigilante devotee. Fans of the
video game will definitely find disappointment when they realize that none of
their favorite world warriors are featured in it. But for the completists that
want all things Street Fighter,
it would make an interesting (if not odd) part of their collection.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

I expressed my
cautious optimism for the new Green Lantern, Simon Baz, when I reviewed Green
Lantern #0 three months ago and I can now
assuredly say that his arc has gone off the rails. Structurally, Green
Lantern #0 had a much tighter focus but Green
Lantern #15 is cluster-bombed and offensive
wreck of comic book. Allow me to make this clear, I like Simon Baz. I like that
he is trying to capture the terrorist that planted the bomb in the van he
stole, even when a fugitive on the run from both the federal authorities and
the Justice League. However, one revelation irreversibly soured me on this arc.
The terrorist that “set” Simon up? He is a white male and presumably a
survivalist or part of a militia judging by the arsenal in said terrorist’s
basement and the “an American hero” comment he makes in the issue is equally
frustrating.

Before anyone
accuses my statements as racist, that is not my intent. My issue with this
comic book is that it reinforces “us vs. them” mentality I see in today’s race
relations. European males maintained a political and cultural hegemony for
centuries, I get it; I know that there are more than enough homegrown
terrorists in Middle America as evidenced by Adam Lanza’s killing spree in the
recent Newtown tragedy. Geoff Johns scraped the bottom of the bottom of the
barrel when he used the “angry racist white man” stereotype in Green Lantern
#15 and it shows. Personally, I was hoping that the terrorist(s) in this issue
were Muslim Arabs. Not because I believe all Muslims and Arabs are terrorists
but because I believe that Johns wasted an opportunity to rise above petty
politics and show Simon Baz as the hero he can be.

Martin Luther
King Jr. said nearly a half century ago, “I have a dream that my four little
children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character.” My main issue with the “us vs. them” mentality is
that it leaves no room for the subtle grays in between. There is good and bad
in every human regardless of race, ethnicity, or creed and it is through our
decisions where reveal the true content of our character. While Simon Baz is a
car thief, he also cares deeply for his family, feels a deep sense of
responsibility over his mistakes, and places the safety of others over his own
needs. Had the terrorists he was searching for been Arab-American, I believe
that his better traits would have shone through his skin color and he would
have risen above the negative stereotypes associated with his community.
However, Johns chose the intellectually lazy route that I see has grown
prevalent in mainstream American culture. Just like one cannot strengthen the
weak by weakening the strong, one cannot valorize a minority by demonizing the
majority. I find it unproductive in any meaningful dialogue.

The lack of
focus in Green Lantern #15 only
exacerbates the problems I see in this issue. In addition to the Simon Baz arc,
there is also the Hal Jordan/Sinestro subplot and the subplot involving the
Guardians of the Universe and the First Lantern, which do not receive much
attention because only so much plot can fit in twenty-two pages. With the
supposedly cosmic scope of Green Lantern and the Guardians’ scheme to
extinguish free will in the universe, Simon Baz’s storyline feels forced and
extraneous to the Rise of the Third Army “event.” That is also my biggest problem with Green Lantern and its sister titles, everything feels like a
build-up to the next intra-line event. In the span of five years there was Sinestro
Corps, Blackest Night, Brightest Day, War of the Green Lanterns, and now Rise of the Third Army, which feels like the build-up for the next big
crossover. Personally, I have had enough of this nonsense, Green
Lantern is not enjoyable as it was earlier
in Geoff Johns’ run and it has gotten formulaic to the point of repetition, the
race/ethnic relations undertones make it insulting.

In some ways, I
believe the drop in quality is endemic to what I see in the New 52 (and the Marvel Now initiative to a lesser degree.) Despite, the
repeated claims that this reboot is a “fresh” new start to the DC Universe,
most of it is stale as week-old bread and buildup to Trinity War feels like the same intra-company crossover, but
that is another rant for another day.